Genius DIY Online Travel Booking Hacks to save you stacks of money

Digital Hacks

Thanks to the Internet, booking travel online is simple. These effective and easy-to-use digital hacks will help to save you thousands of dollars over the years.

Conventional wisdom has long held that the cheapest fares are for Tuesday or Wednesday departures. But our research turns this ‘fly midweek’ wisdom on its head.

TGIF

An analysis of three years of Skyscanner flight data indicates that the cheapest day to depart the US and Canda for Cancun and the Riviera Maya is typically a Friday – hooray for the weekend! And the priciest day to fly? Sunday. That’s great news for short-breakers – or those who want to turn five days off work into nine days away.

The waiting game

Online tools like Yapta, Hopper and Google Flights allow you to search for flights, then keep track of them through their interface or even via email alerts. If a flight drops or increases in price, you’ll get a notification.

Call the Hotel Directly for the Best Prices

Another great digital hacks is to use a website or app to find a discounted rate on lodging. Most hotels prefer you to call them directly when you book, and offer even lower prices for booking directly.

Try an Airline’s Home (or International) Website

Some overseas airlines list cheaper flight prices if you use their country’s version of the website. Particularly, MAYAir is famous for offering discounts as high as 30 percent when you book through the Spanish version of its website. You may have to ask Google to translate your page, but if you can navigate the website and book your ticket, this is a relatively easy way to save.

Mix and Match Airlines and Airports

When booking your round-trip flight, search for two separate one-way tickets, too, possibly on different airlines. Instead of buying a round-ticket on one carrier, piece together two one-way tickets on two different carrier. Sometimes, the overall price is less expensive for two one-way tickets instead of one round-trip ticket.

Winter-sun savers

Excellent news for everyone who dreads the bleak midwinter. Our data reveals that long-haul fares tend to be lowest in January and February. As ever, this varies by route and when you book, so the easy way to figure out where to go when is to put in your preferred destination on Skyscanner then instead of entering a date, simply choose ‘Cheapest Month’. And the results will show the month with the lowest fares, based on recent searches.

Palafitos, by Lomas Travel

Clear Your Cache

Another great digital hack and this is a big one, everybody! Have you ever noticed that when you return to check the cost of your flight day after day, the price just keeps going up? This is not a coincidence. Flight booking engines and airline websites store cookies in your browser. They will then jack the price up to urge you to buy! It sounds criminal, doesn’t it? Well it’s not illegal and it happens all of the time on pretty much every booking website.

Destination Region, Not Just Destination City

Sometimes you want to go to Europe, but you want to be spontaneous. You’ll fly to any city as long as it’s cheap. Well, Google Flights will be your new best friend. Instead of having to input a destination city, you can input a destination region (ie: Europe). You can then open a map view of the entire continent which shows airfares on every major city and airport. Using traditional methods of flight search, you have to separately search each city in Europe to find the cheapest flight and this could potentially take hours.